This song came on four or so times yesterday at work. (This means someone put the 80's playlist on shuffle and then promptly forgot all about it.)

And then my mind wandered away from me (I was working in the dressing rooms and had two customers over a six hour span of time) and got really sad because this scene just kept playing over and over behind my eyes.

A lot has happened in ten days. Three shows, apartment hunting, various incarnations of late night debauchery (replete with my DJ skills, which may or may not find a regular outlet come fall--STAY TUNED), and quite a few helpings of rice and beans later, I am only weeks away from Minnesota and anxious as a foal taking its first steps. Okay, maybe not so cute. Or so metaphor-y. Mostly, I just feel like I work at Empire Records now, which may explain why I shaved my head Saturday afternoon before our show at the Elevens. Or maybe we should all just accept the fact that I hate having hair.

Life is slightly out of control. The way that I can tell is that I went out and bought more books this morning. Woke up at eight, dragged myself out of the house, had a pot of tea and played with words for awhile. I have been working more than I care to mention, which allows very little time for writing. My novel goes neglected, and has been lying dormant somewhere in the back of my brain since early May. My poems go unwritten. And my shelf of books stares me in the face every night as I fall asleep in this mocking way that is also sad. There are so many of them there waiting to be read, and every night when I get back from the day's dealings, my tank is empty of energy.

What remains in this chaos is my penchant for questions. I ask more of everything I hear, to the point that my co-workers laugh and are unsure of how to respond. Questions only lead to more questions. And all I want to do is watch the World Cup.

1. My dad finally had his surgery--six bypasses in total--this Tuesday morning, and he is strong and recovering well. He may be walking around right now, a crazy thought after everything he's been through this past few months. I could not be more grateful that he's going to be okay (knock on wood), that I get to keep my dad around. My little sister insisted that he needed to be here to see all of us married, and I laughed in spite of the seriousness of the situation. At this point, he'll be around to see me get my writing published, which is the only milestone I am concerned about sharing with him. His stories made me a storyteller more than anything else. High five to the cardiac unit at Hackensack Hospital for keeping him safe and giving us the best reward possible for all of the risk.

2. Cass and I finally found an apartment, after a lot of run-around from too many people. The place we are signing for is the second story of a house in Amherst with a private porch (which is all we had dreamed of when picking a place for the summer after the poet house in Allston's porch was so delicious). It'll only be until the end of August, which makes me less panicky than the mumbo jumbo fifteen month deathtrap lease a realtor was trying to talk us into. I hate realtors. It will be our summer writer's retreat, a continuation of the tree house tradition from the Lady Poet House. Cass wants to see it before we name it. I am souped on summer, 100%. This morning, I had no place to live. Tonight, I drink to my first place on my own.

3. That being said, this year has been estrogen saturated in every way--I have never spent this much time around women, thinking about women's issues, making strides towards understanding what I want to be like when I grow up. The Lady Poet House has been such a help in feeling happy with myself even when I have a bad or lonely day. I have never had such stable relationships with my women friends. We have our own forms of bonding that are probably very particular to our specific cultural subset ("so Plath" as Sean would put it, and did the other night). For example, Cass and I make rare trips to the movies together to see such plucky cinema gems as Whip It!, which I wish I'd had in high school, and most recently,The Runaways. We like to pretend we were these kinds of people in high school, the ones who magically find their way to something that makes them powerful (roller derby, rock and roll, etc.), but in truth, our coming-of-age that Hollywood might consume and then refashion into an indie film would have a lot more to do with first year at Hampshire and some slam poetry growing pains. Personally, I'm much more comfortable seeing Dakota Fanning in a corset than thinking about Ellen Page playing me in a movie version of my life.

Spent most of the day hiding in the tree house cave trying to kick a nasty mystery illness. Thankfully, Cass and I had Tegan & Sara DVDs and Seven Brides For Seven Brothers and the library book request system to make us feel in touch with the outside world. The following are my favorite scenes from the day.

We sang along at the top of our lungs so that everyone in the quad could hear us. And then we watched it a second time. And relived our massive crushes on them from middle school. And watched their tour documentary. And. And...

All that I have to say regarding this is that I would very much enjoy attending a barn raising.

Writers ranging from Margaret Atwood to Neil Gaiman give their rules for writers, and more often than not, the advice offered is both hysterical and incisive. Because I cannot do anything without having at least a small part of my brain used up on the ways writers talk to other writers.

1. Last night, in lieu of going to a party that would have required driving and small talk and a general regard for personal grooming, Cass and I opted to stay in our cozy treehouse and watch the Jersey Shore finale and reunion show. It was definitely the superior choice. Afterwards, I climbed into bed and watched two episodes of The Tudors (which has more sex acts per episode than anything on TV, except maybe True Blood), then Grey Gardens, and then Step Up 2 on Netflix. I then attempted to watch Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory but decided during the opening credits that I didn't like the looks of 5 AM and should probably hit the hay. So, for those keeping track at home, this is what is currently in a blender in my brain.

If I had remembered my dreams upon waking, I'm sure they would have been epic and/or terrifying. Good thing SVU didn't make into into the mix, or things could have gotten pretty out of hand.

2. The job hunt saga continues. After calling and leaving a message at the office of the coffee shop I had my heart set on (in all likelihood, I'll never get a call back), I decided I needed to take matters further and do a second variety of canvasing--the internet kind. Honestly, I'm not sure why I didn't think of it sooner, being that half my life exists in virtual space (thank you, beloved Blog Land). Anyway, this afternoon, I woke up after that long night (and morning) of Netflix Instant Watch chomping at the bit for some employment. I dipped my big toe in the western Mass edition of Craigslist and shoved some debris around, eventually unearthing a gem: a restaurant in NoHo looking for someone to start on lunches and a Sunday night shift, to later be phased into the regular schedule. In a moment of frenzy--I have missed waiting tables more than I would risk articulating--I rewrote my resume, hopped in the car, and drove over, ready to conquer. And it seems they were prepared to be conquered, because the manager told me to come back for an interview tomorrow morning. Perhaps, if all goes as I wish it would, I'll have a new source of income by the end of the week.

3. I'm not sure if any of you watched this year's Golden Globes (I didn't), and even if you did, I'm not sure you would have even caught this bit of awesome on the red carpet broadcast. So, I bring you Amanda Palmer rocking the red carpet the way it should be rocked:

If ever I end up at one of those things, you can all rest assured it will be in a naked dress of my own.

I love these two so much I've been trolling the internet for roller skates and repeatedly telling Cassandra that I am going to run away to join a derby. We saw Whip It last night and now I'm a little obsessed. Perhaps because slam doesn't exactly satisfy my thick competitive streak.

I've been stomping around all day in my Docs wishing that my wardrobe was even close to being as cool as Bliss's in the movie. I pine for the day when Hollywood sweeps in to make my life into a movie and hands me a big pile of clothes that make me look like an even radder version of myself. (Not that I don't already think I'm pretty rad, but sometimes having more to play with means extra-fabulousness.) Speaking of which, I went to Plato's Closet today to sell a bunch of useless things that were just taking up prime closet real estate and ended up coming home with two new-to-me dresses. One of them is yellow, which seems to be the color of the moment for me, and the other is this amazing denim shirtdress with little gold nautical buttons.

Another thing I've been yelling at Cass about lately (besides my jonesing for the second installment of my rib tattoo, of which I may or may not post a sketch sooner rather than later) is that my closet is finally arriving at a place where I am excited to get dressed every morning. Now I just have to grow my hair to an acceptable length, organize my shoe closet (which is really just my suitcase shoved under the bed), and perhaps do my homework. Although, who really does their homework in the first place?

I went to movies for the first time in awhile last night, mostly as an excuse to get out of the house, but partially out of an intense curiosity. I will be completely honest with you - I used to adore the Harry Potter novel series, but by the time the last book was released, I had lost all passion for it and didn't even pick the thing up. When the last film came out however long ago, I didn't even muster the energy to see it. I only ended up watching it because my boyfriend of some months ago had a DVD copy on a day when I was sick in bed and feeling whimsical and nostalgic.

I get intimidated by large crowds freaking out about any pop culture phenomenon. I don't go to very many legitimate concerts, am not a huge fan of midnight openings, would not call myself a 'fangirl' of anything or anyone (except maybe vampires - and not the Twilight kind - and definitely Ryan Adams). So when my entire family went to see the latest Harry installment without me, I wasn't all that upset. Nothing about the previews made me excited for it, and I figured it would only be a matter of time until it was on demand on cable at my apartment, so I'd get to it eventually. But then the boredom struck. I was sitting home alone in the rain, the cats ignoring me and nothing of merit on TV. So I decided now was as good a time as any to give it a shot. I know I don't sound very enthusiastic in this retelling, but that's because I wasn't.

But once actually in the theater, I felt that feeling that I often had while reading the books - that though sometimes predictable or a little corny, the events of the story were somehow very resonant with what I've gone through. The movie took awhile to get going, but since I am now so far removed from being a reader of the books, I was able to appreciate the film separate from its origins; and I was impressed. I expect this series to be a lot of flash and action (maybe because the one that rests most clearly in my mind in the fourth installment with the Triwizard Tournament and all the dragons and daring wand battles that entailed), but the movie was quiet and heartfelt in a way I was caught off-guard by. Harry, Ron, and Hermione (and the actors that play them) have reached a place of subtlety and reality that I never thought could exist within Hogwarts, a place where bombast and leaps of faith abound.

There is a scene in the Great Hall that is very dark, both literally and figuratively, when a gust of wind blows all of the hovering candles out. I literally got chills, and this shot can be symbolic for a lot of the moments that I am really taken with from the movie. There were so many gorgeous shots that allowed themselves to be simple and have that sparse beauty enough. Harry's encounters with the pensieve are probably the best example of this: instead of going an overblown and melodramatic route, when a memory is poured out of a vial, it simply looks like ink expanding in water, and that simplicity is a condition that threads through the film. I found myself crying several times over the course of the few hours I sat there, and though it seems almost laughable in retrospect, that simplicity and the honesty of the emotions expressed so effectively by David Yates and his cast was absolutely arresting.

I haven't written a movie review on here in awhile, and that's probably because I am no longer dating a film student, nor do I have the time to watch four or five movies a week, but I felt I had to talk about this movie. Without the overlay of the wizard world and the menace of the rising powers of evil, the story is only one of the family we acquire and surround ourselves with as we become adults. This has always been beneath the story, but it can be seen most clearly in this film, where moments of love are palpable in a way I expect from some sleeper indie hit and not a blockbuster children's film with one of the biggest opening weekends of all time. Bravo Harry, for surprising me and making me believe all over again.

I need a Patrick Fugit-type character. I turned on HBO as soon as I tumbled in the door with my suitcases and fell onto the couch more than happy to soak up Almost Famous. I just wish I could watch all of it instead of leaving for work momentarily.

I know I have disappeared off the face of the planet, and while I'm not going to apologize because I'm really not sorry for having the capacity to enjoy real life more than virtual life right now, I will give you a little bit of an update on the goings-on in my life currently. But a short one, because there are serious things to accomplish today.

First off, work has been incredibly hit or miss, and I still don't have as many shifts as I'd like to. One day, I'll make over $100, and then others I'll make less than thirty. And my last paycheck was somehow screwed up. I'm trying not to stress about it. I really like all of the people that I work with thus far, which is a first for me - usually there's someone I cannot deal with, but I have yet to meet that person at this job. Also, because I'm standing on a deck next to the ocean every shift from ten AM until whatever ridiculous hour of the night they send me home (usually around eight or so) my face is incredibly tan and I'm not really sure what to think of it. All I know on that front is that I am happy to not have any kind of bizarre tan lines from my polo shirt. Yet. Keeping my fingers crossed that that never happens, but we can only hope about these things.

Changing directions quickly...

DC and I went to see UP the other night with his friend John who is visiting from Tennessee for the week (hear the band he plays guitar for here). I am not ashamed to say that I cried three times. It was a really fun, sweet movie, not Pixar's best, but definitely one of my favorite movies I've seen lately. Not that I've really been going to the movies much in the past few moths. Things have been too hectic to make such concrete time commitments. The following night a bunch of us went out for happy hour and then Kait invited us to meet up with her at Forbidden City on Federal Hill. None of us had ever been there, but I was excited by the prospect of walking up to a bouncer and saying "Emily + three" and getting to jump the line. Which we did, landing us in wall to wall Gotti blowouts, too-loud Lady Gaga, and some really skanky-looking go-go dancers. Kait bought me a drink and apologized for the intensity of the place (this was a Monday night, but apparently everyone there was quite alright with going to work smelling like someone else's hangover on a Tuesday), and we left soon after to head back to AS 220. I still do not know what to make of that place. An establishment with "Tea Room" in the title should not have wall-sized projection screens or even a bouncer. There should be tea. And that's it.

Yesterday I drove down to East Greenwich to have lunch with DC next store to his job and ended up hanging out with him for about three hours even though we were going to see each other at night back in Providence. We've been getting wrapped up in very serious conversations lately. Whenever I ask him what he's thinking about, he always says, "the universe", and I always tell him that it's impossible to fit the entire universe into your brain. Tonight we're going to Writer's in the Round at Tazza, a little show that DC plays with a few friends every first Wednesday of the month. He's been a little under the weather lately, so he might not end up doing it this time, but I gave him echinacea and vitamin C pills to try to fix the mystery sickness, and hopefully that will help. I'm missing the NorthBEAST regional slam to hang around downtown tonight, and it doesn't even really phase me. In another life, say about a month ago, I would have been devastated by my temporary lack of gas money, but lately I am loving Providence (and Rhode Island in general) far too much to leave.

Wrapping up, today's activity will be to assemble the chapbook/zine that I'm making especially for my feature at Blue State Coffee in a few weeks and begin the search for a copy shop of some sort to make such an endeavor possible. I'm going to make it have mostly Providence-specific poetry, which will hopefully make it sell well with the people who go to that reading. We shall see.

And I leave you with this - last night, someone sincerely called me sexy, and I actually believe him. I am a seriously changed person. I'm worried no one will recognize me when we're back at school in the fall, with how rapidly I feel myself changing.

In my dreams of course. Yesterday I watched this documentary Kill Your Idols that was a free on demand movie from the Sundance channel, and though I've always loved and been fascinated by Gogol Bordello, I am now absolutely smitten with Eugene Hütz. The documentary was about no wave and its influence on the New York music scene since the 80's, and though I'm not sure I could regularly stomach Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, I have found a new thing I'd like to research the shit out of. Also through the documentary, I found Black Dice, which is now in heavy rotation in my iTunes. I think the cats hate me now. They keep staring over at the strange noises coming from my laptop (either Eugene yelping or bizarro feedback and electronic noises) like they'd like to murder me.

To escape their intensity, I am going to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients for falafel burgers and mock krema. Afterwards, I may or may not talk about the strange nature of graduation at my school. I am still trying to process what happened yesterday involving diplomas and Bobcat Goldthwait. And yes, you did read that correctly. Also, I think I might have a big throbbing crush on Ken Burns. He's almost too adorable in person.

If I had to unknowingly wake up on a beach covered in condoms, it would be probably be alright if it was with someone I really cared about. These are the things I think about alone in the apartment all day. Watching Wristcutters. Glaring over the back of the couch at my full-sized futon.

Lately, I've been getting the feeling that I cannot do work in the same space twice. On Saturday, it was the library. Or maybe that was Friday. Fairly frequently, it has been taking place in some form at Cass and Sophia's house (we call these gatherings study parties and drinking the ever multiplying cans of PBR that hide behind jelly jars in their fridge; we don't know how there can still be beer after all this time). And today, the location is Emily Dickinson Hall. I figured that since I was attempting to write a literature paper, I should go a place named after a writer. But really, my room is too much of a mess to study in, my living room in constantly serenaded by the dulcet tones of VH1 voice-over, and no one is ever awake as early as I am, so going over to 40 is still out of the question. I guess this couch will have to do.

Last night was the screening for Evan and James' final films, and I just want to say that they made me so proud. All the time and effort that went in showed in the best possible way. There was a huge audience too, which I was thrilled about, and not just because so many people came up to me afterwards to tell me that I did a great job acting (I guess it's easy when you're friends with both directors?), but because the guys deserved it. I even got to see James' parents again, which was not the boatload of awkward I was expecting it to be. They are such sweet people.

And then there was the after-party. We drank champagne from the heaviest bottle known to man - the thing literally had metal embellishments - and sang a decent amount of Queen, which is just the way I wanted it. There were fireworks. We watched Spaced, as any group of cinema nerds would after the first real premiere. Not counting Upstaged of course.

As for right now, I'm attempting to write a paper on the articulation of identity in reaction to familial handling of the past in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon and Beloved. I found some great articles on Project Muse, so now I'm actually writing instead of just brainstorming, but I can't trust myself with academic resources: I got side-tracked by the search bar and ended up downloading about twenty articles about Virginia Woolf. Why yes, I do plan on nerding out hardcore all summer. And yes, that plan does include reading a serious amount of scholarly literature for no reason other than that I thoroughly enjoy it. Why am I not going to grad school for literature again? Oh right, I have no capacity for focusing on the task at hand. Hence why my entire paper is still in scatter-brained legal pad form. Time for some restructuring. I'll let you know when I move on to my discussion of the failure of love in Michel Houellebecq's The Elementary Particles using that bell hooks book on love that April gave to me and Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of Love (which has the most poetic introduction of any sociology book I have ever seen). Somuchreadingtodo.

My longing to dance again is manifesting itself around every turn. I am in the midst of revising a piece for my fiction workshop portfolio, and while one of the characters was always a former ballerina, I am finding more and more reasons to write about ballet within her sections. I just spent the past twenty minutes reading about various incarnations of Swan Lake and the many possible origins and different endings that exist for it. I want to see a ballet so badly. It's been far too long.

Instead of thinking about high culture though, Cassandra and I are going to see Mallrats at the mall tonight. The irony of this is not lost on us. The experience will most likely make me nostalgic for New Jersey. I'm trying not to think about it too much.

Last night I watched most of The Mist in black and white, and afterwards saw The American Astronaut for the first time. I can't even begin to explain it, but I thought I would let you all decide for yourselves.

Also, I can't help but wonder if Men, Women and Children have seen this film. "A E I O U nothing" appears in one of the songs in The American Astronaut and also is the refrain for one of their songs. As is evidenced by this live performance.

I'm not sure if I remembered to mention this or not, but my very best friend in the whole world is coming to visit me in dismal snowy Western Mass next weekend, and I could not be more excited. She'll be here with a purpose, naturally. James cast her in his Div III and thus she must spend all of Saturday acting (10 AM- 7 PM, we get real serious about movies sometimes), but she is all mine on Friday and whatever time on Sunday she stays for. I envision breakfast at the diner. We will make fun of the food because, being from New Jersey, we have the best diners in the world. We will have quite a bit of fun at that hi-lighter party I mentioned the other day. And I will not have to be so homesick (a near-constant state for me) for a few days. The respite is more than just welcome. I am in dire need of some Jersey love. I don't care what anybody says, I love that place more than any other.

On Thursday night Maggie will be on her way from Brooklyn, and thank god.

That dress is barely cold (I haven't even attached the pockets yet), and already I'm knitting something new. I don't know where the space in the day comes from, but I'm making headway. It is in what I have lovingly referred to as a mac 'n cheese type yarn, and I'll post pictures when it's finished, or close to being finished, because we all know how impatient I am.

As CUPSI gets closer, I feel an eerie calm falling over me, and I'm not sure if I should be alarmed about it or not. Kat has lost her voice for the time being; we haven't finished working out our group piece yet; I need to get a new poem off page that Charlie is convinced will score well. Everything seems to be stacking up against us, but I am convinced we'll pull through and make a good showing when we end up in Philly in a few weeks time. And as an addendum to that note about future travels, I am very excited to be making my way back home for some serious basement cleaning, Spring break will most likely be me knitting, reading, sleeping, and purging my house of all the things I have pack-ratted away since middle school. Taking the train home from Philadelphia costs $12.50...something about that seems old-world romantic to me, and I don't know why. I have a feeling I'm going to do a lot of writing on the train, both to CUPSI from here in Amherst and from 30th Street home. I can't wait.

The Oscars are tonight. James and I are reprising our pool from last year, making it our first real annual tradition. I feel kind of old saying that, but I like it. I hope we do it again next year, even if we can't watch together. I am sure the night will precipitate a rant of some sort, so stay tuned for some movie talk (which I haven't had the time or energy to accomplish in too long). Until then, I am entrenched in literary theory.

In post-script, James has my copy of High Fidelity, but every time I suggest we watch it, he makes some disgusted comment about John Cusack. I just don't get it. That man is a god to me...